In the world of advertising, the first and most important rule is to capture one’s attention. This is the basis for the age-old acronym AIDA, which is namely:
Attraction – Grabbing their attention from amidst the sea of clutter.
Interest – Drawing your audience to view/read/listen further.
Desire – Making them want/need/lust after your stuff.
Action – Where the wallet meets the business owner.
Do you know that Singapore’s founding father Sir Stamford Raffles used to live up on Fort Canning? Or that this used to be called Bukit Larangan or “Forbidden Hill” in Malay?
With about 45 minutes to kill after breakfast and before Ethan’s Chinese enrichment classes, my family decided to frolick this hilly green oasis in the middle of our concrete jungle. It was a certainly a pleasant walk in the park even with the warm midday sun beating down upon us.
Our climb started with a peek at the map of Fort Canning located beside the stairs.
View of coconut trees at Siloso Beach
After dinner on Friday, I drove my family over to Sentosa just to check out its night vibes. As usual, there were the tour groups who were just leaving after attending the island’s new night attraction Songs of the Sea. We decided to check out the beaches and along the way, decided to hop by the Cafe del Mar, the happening new beach club just outside Siloso Beach Resort.
Spotted this funkily dolled up postbox just outside UE Square along Unity Road recently while waiting for my son and wife. Its a bid to add much needed colour, vibrancy and art to the city. Apparently, this is part of STAMP, a nation-wide competition organised by URA and Singpost which looks at making over 40 postboxes in the city.
Nice touch there which helps to rejuvenate the old and weary brand image of snail mail. After all, we do know that it is fighting a losing battle against email and other forms of online communications. These splashes of art certainly gives us more reasons to visit our mailboxes to pay our bills!
Now, if only they would do it for all the 800 postboxes around the island instead of just those in the city. That would definitely add a few notches in rebranding and repositioning Singpost as a creative and fun loving provider of an essential service.
Update: Saw that Sparklette also posted about this, albeit in a series!
OK folks, I thought that I should do something wacky, deposit some goodwill in emotional bank accounts and do the meme thing upon the advice of “Da Jie” and good friend eastcoastlife, an A-list blogger. For this I was tagged by environmentalist Pauline. I still owe tags by Oceanskies and Zeezee and will try to work on them soon.
Layer One:On The Outside
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Name : Walter Lim (aka coolinsider)
Birth Date : 24 August
Grrr…. I just realise that my home has been downgraded lately – from a HDB flat to a pig sty! Obviously, we need a lot more public education efforts to support the recent Earth Day celebrations and Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) campaigns.
Our problem of littering isn’t fresh news. In fact, it has been happening all this while. The reason why our island still remained clean and green is largely due to the huge army of contract cleaners and waste management workers that we employ. Without them, I shudder to think what state of decay and filth we will end up with.
I took the following photographs a couple of days ago to show you what I mean, and I didn’t even have to travel far from my flat.
We celebrated two birthdays by two dear nieces this month. As usual, it was a mixture of family fun and chaos when you have multiple kids in a restaurant. There were some uncanny similarities between the two celebrations, which I thought I should highlight.
1) Both the girls’ names start with A – Ariel & Alycia.
2) Both birthdays occur in April. Ariel’s birthday is on 10th April while Alycia’s birthday is on 22nd April.
Students from St Margaret’s Secondary reciting Swie Hian’s poem “A Tribute to Gandhi” in Mandarin.
Recently, we had the privilege of being invited to the launch of the 9-volume Selected Works of Tan Swie Hian and Recital of Tan Swie Hian’s Poetry and Songs by the man himself. Happening at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, the event was graced by Mr Khaw Boon Wan, Minister for Health and an ardent fan of Chinese art himself.
Put together by Candid Creation Publishing and the National Library Board, the event was certainly well orchestrated. The room was packed with close to 200 friends, students, and supporters of Swie Hian – one of Singapore’s foremost multi-disciplinary artist. He was literally mobbed by the hordes of fans, especially students, who clamoured for his autograph! The event was well covered by the press too.
A dabbawalla doing a balancing act. Steady bro!
Hat tip to Seth Godin for this fascinating food phenomenon in India called the Dabbawalla. These guys deliver food in tiffins (metal containers like the one below which we also use in Singapore) to thousands of offices every day.
Saw this interesting looking banner outside Strip – a hair removal joint – at Wheelock Place recently while having lunch at nearby Sun & Moon Dining. Apparently, they remove hair from everywhere, including the famous (or infamous) Brazilian waxing (ouch!) treatment. I thought the huge banner outside their shop was pretty eye catching and different from the usual humdrum marketing (cue TV actress or singer) given to beauty treatments.
The use of comic style characters in the tradition of Roy Lichtenstein certainly catches one’s attention. This is complemented by the clever use of the WANTED style of advertising, coupled with provocative images and cheeky copy that is different from the oft-preferred option of blah advertising by beauty salons. I had a look at their website and apparently, they have quite a funny TV commercial too. I certainly wished that more companies in Singapore can inject greater humour in their marketing.